Something is stirring in the Sea of Sorrows. Ship wreckage is washing up on shore, whales are beaching themselves, local quaggans are leaving their undersea homes, and strange new creatures are being spotted along the Tyrian coast.

Head Researcher Levvi has been pleading with Captain Magnus, leader of the Lionguard, to heed her warnings of imminent danger to the city of Lion's Arch and other coastal settlements. Magnus remains unconvinced, though the disruption of maritime trade has the Ship's Council concerned.

Something new is coming ashore in Lion's Arch at 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time on Friday, November 16. This epic event will change that city forever, even as it introduces an entirely new twist on dungeon play. Come to the defense of Lion's Arch and race to discover the secret behind a mysterious new menace.
At 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, November 17, the second phase of this epic adventure will take players to a place they've never been in Tyria, where they'll meet a new pet creature and discover previously unknown crafting resources that unlock new recipes and a unique way to upgrade gear.
Join us at 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday, November 18 for your chance to take part in an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime final event!

Each dungeon has a new set of unique items with new stat combinations, ranging in rarity from masterwork to exotic. These items have a chance to drop off of certain bosses in the explorable mode of each dungeon.

Story and explorable bosses and encounters have a chance to drop Bags of Wondrous Goods, which contain coins and karma. Bags of Wondrous Goods obtained in explorable mode also contain dungeon tokens.

If the owner of a dungeon instance intentionally leaves his party to kick out players and invite new players, it will now also kick that owner out of the dungeon to prevent people from kicking PUG members and inviting guild members for the final boss of a dungeon.

There are new stories being told in the taverns of Lion's Arch, usually in hushed tones by broken and bloodied adventurers. They weep into their ales and shake as they speak
not about dragons or the undead, but of something new, a mysterious portal that has emerged in the city, beckoning the bravest to venture through it.
Introducing a dungeon experience like no other—Fractals of the Mists! A series of unique “fractal” minidungeons, increasing in difficulty, offers players unlimited levels of challenge! With great risk comes great rewards, including new weapon sets, a back slot item, new Ascended loot, and much more!

The portal to the Fractals of the Mists will activate with the Lost Shores content Friday at 12:30 p.m. Pacific Time. Head west of Fort Marriner to the entrance and try your luck. Perhaps you'll survive and reap the rewards, or perhaps you'll be lost forever to the Fractals' bloody secrets.

The drop rarity of Rare and Exotic weapons from certain places in the world (champions, veterans, and players in WvW) has been increased. Rares and Exotics should be much more likely to drop and every champion should be guaranteed to drop loot. This was to ensure that world loot drops were not a significantly worse way of acquiring rare and exotic items than crafting and running dungeons.

The amount of loot that drops for downscaled players has been increased. You should now be able to receive level-equivalent loot until you are fighting at a downscaled level that is less than 2/3 of your actual level. You should also receive loot a greater percentage of the time as well as receiving a greater percentage of experience, gold, and karma. For level 80 characters, this means level 55+ areas will be able to drop level 80 gear and give about 75% or so of the other rewards. Previously, these areas would give level 77 gear at best and closer to 60% or so of your rewards.

Paid tournament rewards have been improved. We've spread out the rewards for paid tournaments, so that more finishing positions receive rewards. We've also made it so that qualifying points are rewarded to the following finishing positions:

Raid on the Capricorn: Reduced the number of sharks from 10 to 6. They should no longer cover the Ruins capture point.

PvP downed health is now 75% of what it was. This change was made so that in fights where players are slightly outnumbered, they can win those fights by killing off downed enemies through damage rather than needing to use a finishing move. This should not have too much impact on 1v1 fights or big team fights, but it should help players win 1v2 and 2v3 fights if they gain the initial advantage.

The hit area for the trebuchet in the Battle of Kyhlo has been updated to prevent players from dropping massive AoE attacks (e.g. Meteor Shower) and having every single attack hit the trebuchet, destroying it without any counter. All normal attacks should still work against it.

Many skills, items, and traits were applying healing to an infinite amount of targets and have now been limited to 5 targets.

You can no longer view opponents' account names through reporting in WvW.

Fixed a bug that caused many piercing, boomerang, and bouncing projectiles (those that hit more than 1 target) to continually increase in damage the more targets they hit.

Fixed a bug preventing melee attacks from hitting static objects in the world if the character was not moving. As an example, this should help players using melee in Ascalonian Catacombs to hit graveling burrows, amongst other offending objects.

The Consortium Chest has been added to the gem store in the Consumable category for 250 gems each or 10 for 1800 gems. No key is required to open these chests; simply double-click them in your inventory.

When you open the Consortium Chest, you will receive some number of crafting materials and one random item.

Soothing Wave: This trait now properly applies regeneration to the elementalist when using Conjure Frost rather than only when the bow is picked up.

Healing Ripple: This skill's scaling with healing power has been reduced by 50% in PvP only, as it had scaling that's normally reserved for main healing skills. The maximum number of targets has also been reduced from infinite to 5.

Smoke Screen: This skill's graphic has been updated to show the area of the screen. It now pulses every 2 seconds for 6 seconds instead of every second for 5 seconds. This makes it more effective against enemies using attacks at normal speeds but prevents it from being abused to shut down quick-attacking enemies completely.

Automatic Fire: Increased the duration of this skill's Overcharge by 100% on Harpoon Turret and 25% on Rifle Turret.

Selfless Daring: This trait had an efficiency with healing power that was reserved for healing skills only and has now been reduced to its intended level. Heal scaling has been reduced by 50% in PvP only.

Merciful Intervention: This skill has been updated to be instant when traited and will now always be based around the guardian.

Polymorph Moa: Targets transformed by this skill have 5 new and less-frustrating skills, and this skill can also be used underwater to turn enemies into tuna. This skill now removes Death Shroud from the target instead of the necromancer being stuck in Death Shroud.

Phantasm skills must now be cast in line-of-sight of the target. These skills now behave as normal attacks that the mesmer must connect in order to summon the phantasm, and they will fail if the mesmer is blind or the ability is cast on an invulnerable target.

Phantasmal Mage: This skill's confusion has been increased to 3 stacks for 3 seconds from 1 stack for 9 seconds. The recharge on Phantasmal Mage's skill has been increased to 6 seconds from 5 seconds.

Mark of Revival: These traits now work together to grant 3% life force to players when triggered.

Death Nova: This skill now properly activates when using Taste of Death and Putrid Explosion. The internal cooldown has been removed. This skill's field duration is now 4 seconds, and the rate it pulses has been increased to every 2 seconds. Its poison duration is 5 seconds per pulse.

Shadow Trap: This skill no longer shadowsteps the thief when the trap is triggered. This skill now has two additional abilities: The first ability becomes available when Shadow Trap is cast and will destroy the current trap. The second ability, Shadow Pursuit, becomes available when an enemy triggers the trap. The thief may choose to activate this ability and shadowstep to the enemy that triggered the trap. If this ability is not activated after 10 seconds, the ability will fade and Shadow Trap will be available.

Added new gold indicator icons and event box in the event assistant that is shown regardless of where you are.

The info displayed on the character select screen now has icons and tooltips for each entry (except for tooltip over level, race and profession line) and uses a smaller font. This is also the new location to display information about one's "Current World"

Several item descriptions were fixed. For example: the Golem Banker icon correctly indicates its soulbound status. In addition, the "Consumable" tag for consumable items is now placed in a consistent location in the mouseover.